Jeff McDonald: The fuzzy playoff picture is making our head hurt

It’s the only time of year when a reporter can coax Phil Jackson into uttering the phrase, “I’m not so good on the three-way” and it be totally innocent (Note to the sickos among us: It was in response to the question, “Do you understand all the playoff tiebreaker scenarios?”).

Well, after taking a perfunctory glance at the standings early this morning, we started to realize we weren’t very good on the four-way. And it very well could come into play Wednesday.

If the Spurs lose at home to Utah (could happen) and Suns beat Portland (probably should happen) and the Rockets beat the Clippers (will almost definitely happen) … all that adds up to a four-way tie for third place in the West.

So what happens then?

Turns out, the four-way is actually very simple. It comes down to the better winning percentage in all games among the tied teams. That’s it.

In that case, the standings would look like this, from third to sixth:

Utah

Phoenix

Houston

Spurs

That would leave the Spurs with a first-round matchup against the Jazz, and without home-court advantage. The Spurs, most assuredly, would prefer to avoid this scenario.

The only thing they can do about it is beat the Jazz on Wednesday night.